Your Spring Cleaning Tips and Hacks

Spring is right around the corner which means more sunshine, warmer weather, and fun summertime activities are rearing up to start. But, standing between you and your summer fun is a task no one wants to face, yet it must be done every year: Spring Cleaning. 

We’re going to break down your spring cleaning with our tips and hacks, week by week, to make a daunting task much more manageable. By the end of this 9 week spring cleaning guide your home will have a revitalized look that will have you breathing cleaner and feeling fresh. 

Start on the Ground

Before you start digging into the areas of your home that haven’t seen the light of day since the last spring, we’re starting with the flooring. This will lay a healthy foundation for the rest of your cleaning ensuring you tackled the largest surface areas first.

Vacuuming

Vacuuming is the best place to start, because it picks up all the dirt, food droppings, and everything else hiding among the carpet fibers. A thorough vacuuming will also prepare your carpet for other forms of care like steam cleaning or getting out those carpet stains that you’ve been eyeing. 

It’s imperative you first clean out the canister that traps all of the debris before, and during, vacuuming to ensure maximum suction. Additionally, taking the time to clean the filter will contribute to a better operating vacuum as well. 

Spring Clean Hack: Some people enjoy a few drops of their favorite essential oil scent on the air filter to leave a pleasant scent in the room while vacuuming. 

Sweeping & Mopping

It may seem obvious, but sweeping and mopping will ensure all your hard flooring is clean of grime, dirt, and other build up. Often, a neglected floor will also contribute to a bad odors in the home, leaving you feeling uncomfortable, even if there’s no obvious signs of filth. 

The spring cleaning edition of sweeping and mopping involves moving furniture out of the way and perhaps even a few pass overs around the house.

Spring Cleaning Hack: Some people use different mopping systems like traditional mop and bucket and steam mop  to ensure all the flooring is free from debris and build up.

Steam Cleaning

Steam cleaning isn’t a practice that many of us observe in our weekly cleaning since it can be very time and labor intensive.  

Consider purchasing, instead of renting, a steam cleaner that you can keep and use during your seasonal cleaning rotation. You might be shocked at the murky water sitting in your steam cleaner after running through the carpeted areas of the home. These include living spaces, stairs, and landings that don’t receive regular cleaning, yet are used daily. 

Rest assured, you’re getting all the build up and bacteria out of your home, creating a healthy space for you and your family. It will likely take a few hours to dry, so it’s best to keep the family and pets off them to avoid tracking bacteria onto the wet carpet. 

A fan will keep the air circulating over the carpet and expedite the cleaning process or you can even open the windows and let the fresh air do the drying. 

Spring Cleaning Hack: After the carpets are clean, place the steam cleaner in your storage unit for safe keeping as they tend to take up a lot of space alongside your other cleaning equipment.  

Working Your Way Up

You’ve laid the foundation of your cleaning and with the floors deeply cleaned, it’s time to start moving up– literally! 

Clean the Baseboards

The baseboards are frequently neglected, yet they’re the one feature that ties the flooring and wall together, making the room feel whole. Using a clean rag to wipe down all the baseboards will produce a room that looks and feels brand new. 

Though, it can be a laborious task, you will find that once you start you must finish wiping them all, because you will finally see how much abuse and filth they pick up throughout the year. 

Wipe Down Walls

It might seem weird at first, but have you ever looked at your walls? Walls harbor a range of debris, dust, and even creepy crawlers. However, the color of the paint on the walls can do a great job at masking these unsightly additions, especially if you have any fixtures. 

While you wipe down the walls, take off any hanging items and give them a wipe down as well.

Most walls will require just a dusting, however, you might need to apply some elbow grease to markings that the kids or pets leave. After you get done wiping down the walls, sit back for a moment and enjoy the new revitalized space you just created. 

Spring Cleaning Hack: Some steam cleaners have attachments that allow you to steam walls. This will help kill bacteria growing in hard to reach places. 

Touch Up Plumbing Lines and Tubs

As time passes and the home is used more, it will start to settle, requiring more upkeep. However, this upkeep is designed to save not just your health, but also potentially save the home from disaster. 

When you use the shower, sinks, and toilets the material used to seal those areas slowly degrades overtime. The more exposure to varying temperature and moisture conditions causes the degradation to worsen, leaving gaps. As gaps grow, more water can fit through, giving the perfect breeding grounds for mold and potential structural damage depending on severity and time untreated. 

This spring, take some time to notice the areas around your indoor plumbing and ensure it’s free of gaps and cracks. If you do find vulnerabilities, be sure to use the appropriate sealant to keep water out and the structure safe from damage and mold. 

Clean Curtains

When was the last time you washed your curtains? 

It’s another feature of the home that we don’t notice since our interaction with them our so brief. However, curtains are great at capturing dirt, dust, and other air pollutants without us realizing it. They sit in front of windows and doors that have constant air particles floating in and out. 

Give your curtains some much needed washing which will also help to ensure the walls and flooring remain free of debris. 

While you’re tending to the curtains, don’t forget to give all the blinds a wipe down too! 

Fire Safety

It might seem counterintuitive to consider fire safety a part of spring cleaning, but spring cleaning isn’t just about hygiene. 

Spring cleaning is about taking time to give the home the attention to the areas outside of your regular weekly cleaning routine. 

This is the perfect opportunity to change the batteries in your smoke detector and Carbon Monoxide detector if you can’t recall the last time they were replaced. While checking your smoke detectors, it is also the right time to ensure your fire equipment is still ready and not expired. 

These tasks should only take a few minutes in total and can potentially save you one day. 

Spring Cleaning Tip: If you want reassurance your fire extinguisher is still safe to keep, you can bring it to your local fire department for an inspection.

Air Filtration Systems

The air you breathe affects everything from your physical health to your mental health. 

Part of spring cleaning is striving to optimize home’s air quality so you and your family are healthy year-round. Each season you should change out the air filters used in your in-home HVAC system. 

If you use alternative air purifiers like stand alone systems, this is also the time to change those filters. It’s especially important in the spring time to have fresh air filters as the bees fly and dance among the blooming flowers and pollen levels rise so do the spring allergies.

Spring Cleaning Tip: Make sure you are using HEPA-certified air filters in all of your systems. 

Gathering Items for Storage

As we navigate life, we tend to collect more items than we have room for and overtime these items get put away taking up valuable storage space. Throughout your spring cleaning, you’re likely to encounter items that may have been hidden and untouched for long periods of time. Some of these items have special meaning to us for various reasons and we don’t want to get rid of them. 

However, as your pile builds you can grow worrisome not knowing where to move these older items. This is where a storage unit is a perfect solution for expanding your storing capabilities. 

Not only can you hang onto these items, but a storage unit can protect the integrity of the items, like electronics, and offer more room for your home. Additionally, you can store all of your deep cleaning equipment that you don’t regularly use to save more room and ensure they stay ready to keep serving you for the many springs to come. 

After completing this first week of tasks, you will start to see your home shift back into the clean safe haven you know and love. Next week, we’ll be deep diving into the details of the kitchen and creating a cooking space you’ll cherish.